The Midnight Star
by Vivsien
Summary: When Callum is seventeen, the Dragon King lies dead. When he is not quite eighteen, the assassins come. In an empty tower beside a not-so-empty magic mirror, Callum makes a promise. The promise is good. The magic mirror bit? ... Probably bad. [In which canon has been postponed by three years and consequently implodes.] (Slash and some mild crack pairings) [Jan2020: not abandoned]


**Quick note! This is going to be around 50k or so in length, give or take 15k, but**** my ambition may grow. ****Updates will be irregular.**** (I am so going to make the effort though because this plot idea has me _insanely_ curious.)**

**This is, at present, about Callum growing in a different set of circumstances. For better or worse, Aaravos features heavily in his development. Because canon plot cannot be denied, there will be other perspectives. Rayla and Claudia, for sure.**

**This is not a romance.**

**... But ****I am weak and romance will almost definitely demand a bit o' spotlight. Still, the focus is mostly going to be the consequences of that famine in Duren getting pushed back three years and, as a result, all of canon getting pushed back by three years. Age(gained wisdom, gained opportunities) and circumstances(like being an assassin for three years rather than a fresh-faced rookie) haggle with the timeline. The canon teams are jumbled, new partnerships are forged, canon suffers in varying degrees, and uncommon ships are given a chance (*starts cackling*).**

**Also, keep in mind this is currently being written before season three has aired. So, I don't know the big picture of tDP or whatever sinister longterm motivations that may be revealed in the following seasons.**

**If you've any theories on where this chapter or the story may lead, throw them into a review. My muse is a greedy beast and, even though I already have an idea, exploring the possibilities is what I live for.**

* * *

Chapter One

Midnight

x

It is the first hour of a new day: the time for promises and uncertain beginnings.

[5.323k]

-X-

Callum's nails dug into his palms as he glared at the finely woven rug beneath his feet. There was that cold, dark part of him—strong from the seed that had been planted after using _that_ magic—that wanted to hurt something, anything, until his own pain meant nothing in comparison.

The assassins had cleaved through the castle defenses with an ease not unlike Soren's ability to devour butter. He had glimpsed them in their near invisibility—the flash of white hair, the faint glow of gold eyes—and he had seen the aftermath of their presence.

"This isn't fair," Callum whispered, breaths rattling in time to his heartbeats. Thunder had been the one to kill his mother and the rulers of Duren, and Harrow had fought for eight years to avenge them. The success had made them _even_, why did the elves have to go and ruin it?

The urge to lash out was rare for him and it never lasted long. Even hurt like he was and remembering the look in his adopted father's eyes as the man gasped his final breaths, Callum couldn't hold on to that rage longer than he already had.

He tried though, tried thinking of how Lord Viren had locked himself away, thought of the upcoming funeral, of the darkness swallowing Claudia's long black hair as she ran after the surviving elf, and of Ezran as he'd last seen him.

"_Don't worry, Callum,"_ Ezran had said, "_I won't snatch the whole batch this time"_ before running off to the kitchens with the ever loyal Bait.

Callum studied the floor a moment longer, letting his hands shake and his nails bite. It felt good to feel a tangible pain, relieving even.

But it still hurt. He sighed and relaxed his grip before any real damage could be done.

Suddenly tired and not seeing any reason not to, Callum laid down right where he stood. On the table, the candle flickered and died. The dark was unrelenting; the stars and moon were blotted out by the heavy curtains of the High Mage's new study.

(The old one had suffered at Claudia's experimentive hand, and Viren's work, despite his reassurances, had been moved as far away from the rest of the populace as possible.)

It was a place Callum decidedly shouldn't have been in. Lord Viren would not be pleased(understatement) to know he had been loitering… Or snooping through his notes.

It had been a fruitless search anyway. There were no scrying spells that didn't use some form of dark magic and Ezran, the animal champion that he was, would not want him to so much as consider it. Callum couldn't bring himself to go down that road regardless. Once was quite enough, thanks.

('_Breathe, Callum. Just breathe.')_

He stared at the ceiling and wished he'd been born an elf. Maybe then, with magic at his side and some serious campaigning, he could have prevented this whole series of events from starting. Even without knowing them, Callum couldn't imagine ever wanting someone to be murdered.

Although, if he'd been born an elf, would he see mankind as anything less than an enemy? Mum had once told him that some truths varied with perspective. What if the elves didn't see death the same way humans did? What if they didn't know that the Dragon King's death had been a leveling of the scoreboard and not the starting of a new one?

Callum supposed it didn't really matter. The death of a monarch would never go unavenged. There would always be someone to return pain and Katolis would no doubt uphold that standard. Maybe it was a sign of weakness or something, but the prince didn't want the war to keep going.

If- _when_ Ezran came home, he would become King and the burden of the cycle would find fall to him. His brother was gentle and wise like their father, but he would be fighting all of Katolis if he didn't want to retaliate.

_If_ he didn't want to.

"_Reject the chains of history_," Harrow had said, as if it was a matter of deciding.

Callum shook his head, studying the rafters of Viren's tower. For all he knew, maybe it was. "We have to try," he whispered. Ezran was going to be King. (_King._) That in itself was a burden, a responsibility. The prince frowned, a resolve starting to burn behind his ribs. "_I_ have to try," he said, sitting up. "I'm not a warrior or a strategist or- or word arrange-y, and I know I can't do magic, but..."

(So what if he practiced with Claudia's sky primal stone? It was only sometimes and he couldn't do any of the spells without the stone. What use was _that_?)

It didn't matter if he couldn't do much or if the possibility of doing anything was near impossible. Not much was still a little more that Ezran wouldn't have to do and Callum would do what he could to help his brother.

"_Ezran will someday be king and you will be his partner, his protector, and his most trusted advisor," _whispered the memory of a dying man (and he ignored the words Harrow had gasped after that, couldn't and didn't dare think about them without Ezran safe and sound).

It was Callum's responsibility to try for this peace: because was in the right position, in the right mindset. The original instigators of the conflict were probably dead anyway, so it's not like _they_ could fix the war with Xadia.

His eyes caught on the bookshelf across the room and trailed to the others beside it. They lingered on the bottles of who-knew-what and the old looking tomes (tomes because calling them books just felt wrong). There were loose papers and seemingly random objects scattered on the central table of the otherwise orderly room.

Callum took all of this in and shook his head. Lord Viren really would be furious if he found him here. Besides, it wasn't as if he hadn't already spent the past two years scouring the bookshelves and papers for mentions of non-dark magic. Waiting here for something to show up was pointless.

A despondency swept over the prince. He was, after all, just wasting time. Magic was supposed to be a tool, not a solution, and Callum kept trying to turn it into something it was not.

And meanwhile, Harrow was dead, Ezran and Claudia were missing, Soren was still scouring the forest, and two of the four assassins were unaccounted for. As if that wasn't enough, the council kept looking at Callum like a herd of hungry cats. It would be days before the week of mourning was over, but he knew that every hour in which Ezran was missing would serve to make the council more desperate.

They weren't going to chuck the crown at him or force him, but... _("In the days to come, if- if-" _The man in the memory choked, gasped, and waved off Viren's concern to clutch tighter at Callum's hand. "_If worst comes to worst, you are to take his place.")_ ...they knew.

Maybe if it had been Viren alone, then nothing would have to change and this threat of authority wouldn't be hanging over his head, but Opeli was a different kind of obstinate and she would cut no corners when it came to proper procedure.

Soren wouldn't be able to call him step-prince anymore.

But regardless! There was no way in hell that Callum was going to be anywhere near that throne without Harrow or Ezran sitting in it. The council were perfectly capable of keeping it warm until his little brother got back.

(If.)

Callum frowned and sat up. "If I want to find them," he realised slowly, words winding through the room like wind across grass, "then I have to follow them." With help, of course. He had never been good at tracking.

Of course, Soren was already doing far more than Callum could and Viren was no doubt formulating some dubious plan, but Callum _needed_ to do something. Even if that meant pretending to be helpful and washing all the windows or drawing up search maps or running around in circles like a headless chicken.

Nodding decisively, Callum jumped up and turned to blow out the candle on the table. He blinked. It was already out and he could see that what was left of the melted wax had cooled. In fact, now that he thought of it, he remembered the candle burning out ages ago.

"Uh…"

The curtains were closed too. Which, even if they weren't, the light was coming from behind him and neither of the two windows were on that side of the room.

Callum didn't move, forcibly demanding his body to stay relaxed because tense muscles meant slow reactions which meant probable death. The years of training to be a prince, while not necessarily the most successful of journeys so far, _had_ taught him a few things.

_Loose or lose, _he thought automatically. (As Soren had made a habit of saying during training spars. It had sounded almost clever until Claudia started using it as well, and in horrifically out of context situations.)

Callum listened for footsteps but heard none.

Maybe it was a glowing Bait? Wait no, Bait was missing too. Had a lunar moth gotten inside then? The glow was too bright for that though and he amended the thought to _a lot_ of lunar moths.

Or maybe it was a ghost. Did ghosts glow?

Slowly, not entirely sure he wanted to know, Callum turned.

The first thing that registered was the gold irises on black sclera. The second thing was that the eyes, in fact, belonged to a face...which belonged to a figure, which belonged to an...an elf?

Callum choked on a shout, stumbling backwards into the table, scattering papers and vials and half falling over it before he caught himself. "Who- what-" He noticed that the elf was not actually in the room but inside the pane of a mirror. Like a reflection.

The prince spun to look into the darkness behind him where the door to the stairwell was. There was no one. He turned to look at the mirror. The elf was still there, but had raised an eyebrow. Callum looked at the room's shadows again, then back at the mirror.

He managed a strangled, "_hi?"_

A magic mirror then. Right. Why did Viren have a magic mirror? The thought process that ensued offered up imaginings of the High Mage wearing a crown, demanding to know who was fairest in the land, and laughing maniacally at Sarai's funeral because now _he_ was Fairest of Fair and no one could stop him! … Except of course maybe Queen Sarai's offspring.

Callum wondered if he should be worried.

The elf was smirking, head tilted and eyes narrowed in a distinctly smug rendition of amusement.

Too distracted to be indignant and too bewildered to qualify as a functioning adult, Callum remained frozen in that caught deer stance, thoughts spinning as the situation truly began to sink in.

Over the years, he had heard various descriptions about the elven races in Xadia, though many of which Aunt Amaya had dismissed as false. It wasn't until he and Claudia had chased after that moonshadow elf that Callum had been able to get a basis for what had been said.

Nothing, however, sounded at all like the figure of indigo and starshine that was standing not so far away. Callum found his eyes drawn to what resembled stars or maybe diamonds that were scattered over the being's cheeks and along the bridge of the nose.

Like freckles.

It was, the prince thought, one of those images that would look impressive sketched but could never be fully realised without colour. A growing part of him wished he had not neglected to learn painting.

He realised he was gawking when the elf began to make a show of adjusting the cloak and brushing away non-existent dust or wrinkles with star flecked hands.

"Oh, sorry," Callum said, straightening off the table with a too-loud laugh.

It occurred to him that he should run and warn somebody... but hadn't he resolved to facilitate peace only moments ago? What better chance would he have?

The elf hadn't lunged through the glass to kill him(_yet) _so that was reassuring.

Callum frowned in sudden consideration and moved closer to peer at the symbols on the mirror's frame. "Are you stuck?" He glanced behind him at High Mage's study and his frown deepened. "Um, should I be reporting Viren for elf importation or...?"

There was no response from the figure. Callum shifted his gaze to the glass again. He was startled by how close he'd drifted and took a step back.

The elf's expression was blank at first, but he? she? smirked upon noticing the prince's attention had returned. With pointed slowness that Callum would have found annoying—if he hadn't been busy admiring the shift in skin colour and the pinpricks of starlight on the newly revealed arm—a finger tapped the side of the elf's hood, presumably where the ear was.

"_Oh_," Callum said, "you can't hear me." He hadn't realised that elves could be deaf too. "That's probably for the best." He wouldn't embarrass himself quite as fast that way. Though, considering his earlier reaction, that was probably a moot point.

But there went the idea of using the elf's voice in puzzling out whether Callum was speaking to a he or a she. He gave the elf as quick a once over as he could manage and said elf didn't pretend not to notice, choosing to fold its arms and deliver the wryest smirk yet.

Callum, ears burning, pretended to find something interesting beside the mirror, making a show of squinting at it as he pretended that no, he wasn't embarrassed. He had, however, determined that he had never seen a man with such a tapering waistline and that the elf was probably female.

Not that it mattered of course, but something about Viren having an elf woman trapped in his private study via mirror sounded worse than having a elf man trapped in his private study via mirror.

Although, the more Callum thought about it the smaller that difference became. It was concerning no matter how you sliced it.

He'd always thought Soren and Claudia had gotten their eccentricity from whoever had been their mother, but maybe Lord Viren was just better at hiding it… Though having private prisoners was really, _really_ weird. And suspect. And also probably illegal.

Should he tell someone?

"Are you Viren's prisoner?" Callum asked. He remembered the sound problem a second later and felt his ears start to burn again.

The elf gave him the partially amused, partially "foolish mortal" expression that was quickly becoming familiar. Callum wondered if the elf practiced it and if Viren usually let his prisoners treat him so sassily.

Callum decided to ignore the elf's apparent superiority problem and twisted his hands into familiar signs. "_Are you a prisoner?"_

Gold eyes studied the gestures intently, then glanced around as if looking for some change in the in the world. Callum raised his hands higher and repeated the question. The elf made eye contact, flicked said gaze down to his hands, and then back up to his eyes.

The expression the elf then delivered was what you would expect from Viren if he was twice as supercilious and having second thoughts about your sanity.

"Right," he muttered, casting the figure an irritated glance. "No sign language then."

Callum turned away and cast about for some solution. The notes everywhere gave him an idea and he pulled his journal from its pouch and flicked to a blank page. He lingered on the drawing of King Harrow on the adjacent page. Briefly, it occurred to him that he would slowly lose the ability to draw his step-father from memory like he had with Mum.

He flipped to the next page so that he wouldn't have to look and, in the top center, wrote:

_Hello_

He held the journal up to the mirror.

The elf looked at the word, looked at him, back to the word, and then back to him. An indigo hand rose and wiggled its fingers.

They could communicate with the written language then. That was good.

That was a fleeting thought however and, in the following breath, Callum could only blink stupidly at the three fingers and wonder which one was missing. The pinkie? Then he dragged his eyes to the elf's face and stared a little longer. The bizarreness of the situation, the warnings he would have given to someone else in these circumstances—it was finally sinking in.

Here Callum was: having a friendly interaction with an elf not minutes after making a resolution to offer what help he could to stopping the war.

The universe was apparently on his side... Or this was the prelude to a complicated chicanery.

Gold irises studied him in return, face impassive and head canting. _Was waving really all that shocking?_ The elf seemed to wonder. Or maybe it was a: _what is this horribly awkward creature doing now?_

Not that the behavior truly registered with the prince, distracted as he was by figuring out how to take advantage of this connection to Xadia. Bringing a hand to his chin, his eyes lowered as he became fully immersed in thought.

The elf followed the unfortunate direction of Callum's gaze twice. There was a slow blink, a confused twist to the browline hidden beneath the lip of the hood, and then a slight twitch of the mouth.

Callum jolted, meeting the elf's gaze again and withdrew the hand from his chin to join the other in a decisive clap that was slightly obstructed by the journal and pen. There was no sound, but the sudden movement startled the elf from a rather dubious line of thinking.

The clap had been premature on Callum's part. He had not received inspiration or struck upon the golden idea. What he did have was a bare bones _notion_ that just might bear fruit and, at worst, waste time.

Well, _at worst_, he'd end up killed or get someone else killed or re-invigorate the war between species but that wasn't too likely.

Befriending an elf couldn't possibly backfire that badly.

Callum opened the journal again. There was a lot of questions he had, but they were mostly selfish and not really war-ending ones so he held them back. There was no telling when Viren would return and the prince would rather not be there when he did. In front of the mirror, that is. It was best not to give the grumpy man a reason to permanently, and murderously, silence him.

The High Mage's crazy potential hobbies aside, Callum still wanted to talk to him about Claudia, and maybe Harrow and Ezran if the topic seemed safe. Being dead, or on a black list, would make that difficult.

First on the Practical Questions List was:

_Is there a better way to communicate?_

The elf said nothing for a moment. Then, nodding once, swept her left hand outwards and up. The fire that had been burning in the hearth behind her—in the exquisite and polished room that Callum was noticing in earnest for the first time—was pulled into the palm of the elf's hand and crushed.

The room beyond the mirror was immediately blacked out.

"Well," Callum said, "that was dramatic."

It was also impressive, and he found himself thinking intently about the display. It was sun source magic, but the elf certainly didn't have the dark skin that Callum had gathered to be characteristic of the race. If anything, he would have said his new aquaintance was a moonshadow elf.

But again, the appearance didn't match up.

Callum thought it over, noting that there were six natural sources and supposedly six races for each of them. He put a hand to his forehead and scoffed at how obvious it was. "Right. Stars."

Then he frowned because if the elf in the mirror was born to the star primal source then how could she do fire magic? Did that mean elves were capable of multiple, or even all of the, magic variations? Or was this mirror elf special? A hybrid? Or maybe the star primal source was special?

The mirror lit up again an unknown amount of time later and the elf on the other side gave Callum a small smile before looking down at the table that was now present. On the tabletop was a bag.

One by one, items were pulled from it, displayed pointedly to Callum, and then placed in clear view to the side.

The last item to be revealed was a single-edged dagger and Callum did not _at all_ appreciate the connotations. It looked like something Viren would use to sacrifice a well-meaning—if a touch too curious—young prince.

He thought about getting out of dodge while he still had the chance. This elf could be evil incarnate for all he knew. Which, granted, that sounded biased even to him, but if there could be evil humans then there could be evil elves. Callum did not want to take part in World Domination. He wanted World _Peace_, damn it!

The elf was looking from him to the items expectantly.

"You want me to… get these things?"

Gold eyes fixated on his mouth as he spoke and for a second afterwards. There was a slow nod.

Callum sighed, but didn't complain—he could always do that later. Besides, a little treasure hunt would be worth it if they could have an actual conversation. It would definitely help along the plan he was trying to build.

(So far, Callum knew the end goal and that an elf ally would be pretty important.)

There was no goblet in the tower and the geode and sewing materials were rough hunting, but Callum, after a few uncertain glances and plenty of sad eyes from the people he came across, managed to get everything together. Though it was late enough—early, technically speaking—by the end of the search that he was sure running around that castle was only serving to imply he had gone manic from grief.

With luck, the council would get word of it and be less enthusiastic about the monarch business.

"Alright," Callum announced after bringing over a chair to mimic the elf's table and double checking that he had everything situated. A quick glance ensured the door was locked and then he moved to stand fully in front of the mirror.

Raising his arms, he was about to start waving for attention when he saw that the star elf was already walking towards him; the book she had been reading was presumably returned to its shelf.

Once in front of the mirror, the elf spared a moment to peer at him. Callum returned the look warily. Whatever the star-patterned being saw seemed to be enough because she picked up one of the objects, motioning for him to do the same.

That was when Callum started to have doubts. Admittedly, he had had some earlier too: before the scavenger hunt and at regular intervals during it.

They weren't quite so big as the doubts he was starting to have about Lord Viren though. The numerous amounts of questionable items Callum had stumbled upon during the beginning of the scavenger's hunt—as in, an in depth rummaging through drawers, cabinets, and those hidden compartments he usually pretended didn't exist—were lit up like little beacons in his mental map of the room and he was unnerved enough simply knowing that they existed.

But he followed along with the elf—who was apparently a master of stitching—and ignored the doubts and the creepiness that had tainted what should have been a pleasant distraction. Though, in all fairness, finding a captive in your tutor's work room mirror wasn't exactly pleasant regardless of the jarred organs hiding on a shelf behind one of the tapestries.

The magic bit with the rune was mildly perplexing, but Callum didn't notice any sacrificial insects or the squeak of an animal being crushed underfoot so he assumed it wasn't _dark_ magic and allowed himself to be impressed.

As directed, Callum poured the rock dust into the water, not entirely sure what was going on and moderately alarmed when it began hissing and emitting purple smoke.

"Is this safe?" He asked when the elf pointedly glanced between Callum and the goblet. There was no obvious reason for the mirror-confined entity to poison a friendly human such as himself, but this was clearly a ritual of sorts. "If you're trying to be diabolical and destroy the world or enslave me to your will then I want no part in it!" Callum warned, shaking a finger at the elf.

The responding smirk was followed by the liquid in the elf's cup vanishing so fast that he wasn't even sure the elf had drunk it. Potential differences between human and elf digestion aside, Callum couldn't be sure that magic wasn't being used to trick him somehow.

The elf was still smirking.

There were so many ways in which this could go horribly wrong. "This isn't how I want to die," Callum muttered. But he grimaced and drank it all anyway.

Outside his fears of dying, the rock-flavoured water was about what he expected. It wasn't grainy, strangely enough, though not exactly pleasant. But Callum didn't feel poisoned, and that's what mattered.

Then the knife was being poised above a splayed palm and there was a new, particularly worrying, variant of smirk adorning the elf's face.

The earlier doubts, the ones about evil and unleashing evil and dying while unleashing evil, were back. Callum didn't at all think Ezran(or anyone sane for that matter) would advocate taking those kinds of risks, the latter in particular.

"This is also not how I want to die," he stated.

Whether the elf had caught the words or not, he didn't know. The smirk did seem to grow though and Callum wondered how someone so pretty and otherworldly could be so sinister.

There _had_ to be practice involved.

Callum looked at the knife. "Why is it," he wondered out loud, "that I asked for an easier way to communicate and get something that looks like a demonic ritual?" What did he say was the worst case scenario for befriending the elf was? Getting himself and/or someone else killed?

But that couldn't be right. He was just Callum, the adopted prince. Befriending people with sinister ambition was more likely to be Viren's thing, not his.

So he took a deep, measured breath and forced himself to relax. Not _at all_ missing the patently villainous look that swept over the elf's face but ignoring it all the same, Callum dragged the knife across his palm and distantly wondered when he had gotten so stupid.

In the corner of his eye, he saw the elf do the same.

The blood—blood in a ritual _what was he thinking_—welled along the cut and slipped into the stone bowl drop by unpleasant drop. Callum had never thought of himself as particularly juicy, but he would have figured getting enough to cover the bottom of the bowl should be easier than it was.

"Uh, how deep is this cut supposed to be?" Callum then paled, head shifting to face the mirror fully as a new thought occurred to him. "I am _not_ drinking this," he said, slow to be sure that at least some of the words were decipherable.

The elf's eyes creased at corners and there was a hiccuping motion of the shoulders that Callum assumed was a chuckle. He waited for an answer, but the elf only smiled. A feat, considering the plethora of smirks from earlier.

Callum stared despairingly into the little bowl.

After a long, horrid span of breaths, he glanced towards the mirror, hoping the elf would motion for him to stop. His hand was really starting to hurt. No such motion was being made though and he returned his grimace to milking his wound.

Which was a rather uncomfortable thought to have.

Callum paused, blinked as he processed something, and looked back to the mirror. Yes, that was a caterpillar on the elf's finger tip. A caterpillar that—had Callum not known better—he would've certainly denied having coming from someone's mouth.

Unfortunately, his photographic memory was a curse and the image that earlier glance had granted him was seared into his mind's eye.

"No," he declared, "I won't. I'm not eating that. No. No, thank you—"

The elf, completely ignoring the rambles and increasingly erratic hand gestures, was frowning at the bowl on her side of the mirror. The indigo hand not holding the insect lifted to hover over said bowl and, after a pause, the frown deepened from perplexed to annoyed.

"—cup of tea!" Callum was rambling on. "Rocks are one thing. Ritual cutting? Yeah, sure. But sharing saliva via demonic caterpillar? Absolutely not-"

Gold eyes shot to green and Callum immediately stopped flailing. The elf pointed a hand at Callum's bowl and motioned for him to bring it close. He did so grudgingly, grumbling about dying from bloodloss and promising to elope with a moonshadow assassin before he so much as _thought_ about agreeing to ingest someone else's grub-shaped tooth cavity.

When the elf saw the blood filled bowl, her eyes glanced skyward and the padded shoulders of her cloak lifted in a faint, but noticeable sigh.

A candlemark later, in which Callum learned he had failed to put water in the bowl—because apparently that was necessary—before seasoning it with his blood, found him once again cutting his palm. This time, the initial spattering of drops was enough.

Purple fire flared momentarily and smoke ghosted up over the bowl's rim. The fluid was now a swirl of brilliant red and bright violet. There was a flash of light in Callum's peripheral that vanished only be replicated by the liquid in front of him and consume the fancy colours until it was less magical, bloody water and more magical, fathomless void.

A very fat, very angry-looking caterpillar spun in the center of it all.

The grub slowed its twirl and raised its upper body to peer inquisitively at Callum, as if _he_ was the strange one in this situation. "You're kind of cute," he said, extending a finger towards it.

The moment those little legs brushed his skin, the caterpillar was darting up his hand and over his sleeve. Callum jolted back a step and it was only his aversion to dark magic and absorbing magic via creature murder that kept him from squealing and flinging the grub back at the mirror.

The fairly snooty amusement dawning on the elf's face drew a glare from Callum, distracting him enough that the instant the grub touched his neck it took a heartbeat too long to process. By the time he did, the grub was traversing the shell of his ear and he could relax because it wasn't going _inside_ of his ear as he might have assumed.

There were limits to what Callum was willing to do for big, happy dreams. A caterpillar taking up residence inside his currently-in-use head was on that list somewhere.

Of course, considering what wasn't on that list (read: unknown rituals from an elf in a mirror), the entire would-do-wouldn't-do debate was far from a science. A few condescending smirks and silent judgey faces would probably be enough to dust off his head's proverbial welcome mat, he thought sourly.

The caterpillar settled on the shell of his ear and Callum huffed a breath of relief.

"**Speak."**

It was a short-lived solace.

* * *

**And that's where this **POLITE WARNING **comes in****... A majority of you are probably going to bolt when I say this, but I've been rather surprised by the lack of crack ships for the Dragon Prince on this site and am now planning to remedy that. Welcome, my friends, to what will later be Aarallum. Or Callavos. Whichever works.**

**That said, I swear to you right now, I am going to go about this realistically. Calm your gentle souls, this is _not_ a kinkmeme response and the continuation of this chapter is not going to be weird.**

**In fact, if Callavos-which I intend to develop _carefully_-and its setup becomes implausible as the plot progresses, then I just won't use it.**

**The next chapter will be a Rayla POV. And I _am_ as of July 31, working on it. I just, um, got sidetracked writing the fourth chapter...**

**[EDIT] College and proctrastination is a devestating duo when it comes to fanfiction... and everything else too, actually. Most of chapter two is done. So it'll be up soon. Probably. Hopefully... No, yeah, it'll definitely be up.**


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